Bulletproof neocons
John Derbyshire has rightfully been kicked around the blogosphere this week for this asinine post questioning the bravery of the students of Virginia Tech for not jumping a guy with two handguns.

At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him. Handguns aren't very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can't hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage—your chances aren't bad.

Tell that to Robert Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Jim Brady -- all of whom were shot with a .22. Kennedy and Brady were both hit in the head, which I suppose in Derbyshire's case would not be considered a vital region.

In an additional post Thursday, Derbyshire ventures the brave and controversial opinion that the VirginaTech shooter was "crazy as a coot" but then tries to argue that the political correctness mafia insists that we not use such terms and that we no longer lock people away for being crazy:

Hold on, though. We no longer (a) acknowledge the category "crazy as a
coot," or (b) lock crazy people up in secure institutions.
Cho (a) had ISSUES, and (b) ought to have been given COUNSELING.
That's better.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it St. Ronald of Reagan that emptied out the mental hospitals in the 80's and started the problem of homeless nuts? And Derbvshire should be careful about pointing fingers in terms of who has issues and needs counselling.

What is Stephen Harper reading?
If it were up to Yann Martel, he'd be reading Tolstoy, but I suspect Martel's first gift will sit on the shelf. While I applaud Yann's efforts, I think I would have started with something more suited to Stephen Harper's intellectual level, like say Theodore Giesel's immortal tale of seduction and alternative lifestyles "Green Eggs and Ham" which at least contains a moral lesson he could use.

GREEN EGGS AND HAM
By Dr. Seuss

I am Sam
I am Sam
Sam I am

That Sam-I-am!
Than Sam-I-am!
I do not like
that Sam-I-am!

Do you like
green eggs and ham?

I do not like them,
Sam-I-am.
I do not like
green eggs and ham.

Would you like them
here or there?

I would not like them
here or there.
I would not like them
anywhere.
I do not like
green eggs and ham.
I do not like them,
Sam-I-am.

Would you like them
in a house?
Would you like them
with a mouse?

I do not like them
in a house.
I do not like them
with a mouse.
I do not like them
here or there.
I do not like them
anywhere.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

Would you eat them
in a box?
Would you eat them
with a fox?

Not in a box.
Not with a fox.
Not in a house.
Not with a mouse.
I would not eat them here or there.
I would not eat them anywhere.
I would not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

Would you? Could you?
In a car?
Eat them! Eat them!
Here they are.

I would not,
could not,
in a car.

You may like them.
You will see.
You may like them
in a tree!

I would not, could not in a tree.
Not in a car! You let me be.

I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I do not like them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

A train! A train!
A train! A train!
Could you, would you,
on a train?

Not on a train! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! Sam! Let me be!

I would not, could not, in a box.
I could not, would not, with a fox.
I will not eat them with a mouse.
I will not eat them in a house.
I will not eat them here or there.
I will not eat them anywhere.
I do not eat green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am.

Say!
In the dark?
Here in the dark!
Would you, could you, in the dark?

I would not, could not,
in the dark.

Would you, could you, in the rain?

I would not, could not,
in the rain.
Not in the dark. Not on a train.
Not in a car. Not in a tree.
I do not like them, Sam, you see.
Not in a house. Not in a box.
Not with a mouse. Not with a fox.
I will not eat them here or there.
I do not like them anywhere!

You do not like
green eggs and ham?

I do not
like them,
Sam-I-am.

Could you, would you,
with a goat?

I would not,
could not,
with a goat!

Would you, could you,
on a boat?

I could not, would not, on a boat.
I will not, will not, with a goat.
I will not eat them in the rain.
I will not eat them on a train.
Not in the dark! Not in a tree!
Not in a car! You let me be!
I do not like them in a box.
I do not like them with a fox.
I will not eat them in a house.
I do not like them with a mouse.
I do not like them here or there.
I do not like them ANYWHERE!

I do not like
green eggs
and ham!

I do not like them,
Sam-I-am.

You do not like them.
So you say.
Try them! Try them!
And you may.
Try them and you may, I say.

Sam!
If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.

Say!
I like green eggs and ham!
I do! I like them, Sam-I-am!
And I would eat them in a boat.
And I would eat them with a goat...

And I will eat them in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And in a tree.
They are so good, so good, you see!

So I will eat them in a box.
And I will eat them with a fox.
And I will eat them in a house.
And I will eat them with a mouse.
And I will eat them here and there.
Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE!

I do so like
green eggs and ham!
Thank you!
Thank you,
Sam-I-am!


NB: If read aloud with the right emphasis and correct eyebrow-raising, this is a very, very naughty, dirty, dirty book. "Would you, could you in the dark?" indeed...nevermind the foxes, goats, mice etc.

Update: Next on Martel's list for Harper is George Orwell's "Animal Farm" -- I suppose "1984" might have hit too close to home.

So much to blog, so little time
It's been a busy few days in the old newroom what with campus massacres and Japanese politicians being gunned down in the street. That, and I have a bunch of books to review and an interview with jam-band moe. coming out on the weekend. Too little time to say everything I'd like to, but here is a quick round up of thing that caught my eye this week:

Gwynne Dyer looks at whether religion makes make people behave better: "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adultmortality, (venereal disease), teen pregnancy, and abortion," while "noneof the strongly secularised, pro-evolution democracies is experiencing highlevels of measurable dysfunction."

In the hours after the massacre at Virgina Tech, I expected to see the trollish end of the right side of the blogosphere go ape and try to the blame the whole thing on muslimislamofascistboogymenunderthebed and to argue that this kinda thing wouldn't happen if more students and professors carried concealed weapons. And lo and behold, I was not disappointed. Debbie "Ann Coulter's crazier sister" Schlussel offers up a twofer and in the comments even tries to argue that "paki" is not a racist insult. Maybe she should consult Merriam-Websters or be like Dubya and try "the Google". While she's at it maybe she should look up "foaming-at-the-mouth hatemongering racist fuckwit" to see if they used her best side for the illustration. Next she'll say that she's reclaiming the term. Really, if I didn't know better I'd think it was a parody site run by flaming liberals.

As far as allowing or even worse, actively encouraging people to go armed on college campuses is concerned --y'know, I remember my university years (well, okay, I remember bits and pieces) and I think there may have been some beer-fuelled hijinks and youthful exuberance involved. And that was just the profs. There is no way in hell anyone I knew back then should have been packing a firearm -- we shouldn't have been trusted with anything more dangerous than a snowball. Encouraging students to go armed would increase their safety in the same way that filling your neighbors' swimming pool with hammerhead sharks would cut down on noisy parties and people peeing in the pool and burying land mines all over the golf course would keep deer off the greens.

The Japan Times shows us the evidence that the Japanese Imperial Armys sex slaves comfort women were indeed coerced. Predictably, Japan's largest newspaper is silent on the issue.

Oh, and on a Japan-related note, the extremely disingenous (and I am being civil here) Glen Reynolds can kiss my ass.

ATLANTA -- The United States has by far the highest rate of gun deaths -- murders, suicides and accidents -- among the world's 36 richest nations, a government study found. The U.S. rate for gun deaths in 1994 was 14.24 per 100,000 people. Japan had the lowest rate, at .05 per 100,000.

Glen tried to get his snark on about there having been a shooting in Japan, where they have very strict gun control. There was another one today. As is usually the case here when there is a shooting, one mobster shot another. You never hear of husbands and wives shooting each other. They occasionally poison, stab, bludgeon or strangle one another, but annual shootings for the whole country are equal to a single large city in the U.S. and the murder rate in this country of 125 million, crammed into a tiny space, is miniscule compared to the United States.

Handguns are strictly banned in Japan, and only police officers and others -- such as shooting instructors -- with job-related reasons can own them. Hunting rifles are also strictly licensed and regulated.
Crime syndicates, however, have smuggled foreign guns into Japan. Of the 53 shootings reported in 2006, two-thirds -- 36 -- were blamed on organized crime groups, the National Police Agency says.

Some costs can't be measured
In all the talk about Iraq and Afghanistan and whether the West is "winning" there and what price we are willing to pay a lot of things go unmentioned. People on both sides are willing to admit that bad things happen to those we send to fight. That people die is a given in most discussions. That people lose limbs and suffer catastrophic wounds and end up with permanent brain damage from massive head injuries is often, but not always overlooked. Those are the physical costs.
What we rarely hear about is the long term cost in broken families, broken spirits and broken lives paid by both sides. If you are one of the many armchair generals, chickenhawks and REMFs who are debating how "we can still win" or why it is dishonorable to "cut and run" and especially if you are one of death's cheerleaders, the type that say "soldiers sign up to die for their country so lets send them off to do so -- to make an omlette you have to break some eggs." --- go read the Galloping Beaver and Pretty Shaved Ape over at Canadian Cynic. And then go sit in the corner, shut up and be ashamed of yourself.

So it goes.
Kurt Vonnegut dead at 84

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”
-from "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater"



Player Piano, 1951The Sirens of Titan, 1959Canary in a Cat House, 1961 (short works)Mother Night, 1961Cat's Cradle, 1963God Bless You, Mr Rosewater, 1965Welcome to the Monkey House, 1968 (short works)Slaughterhouse-Five, 1969Happy Birthday, Wanda June, 1971 (play)Between Time and Timbuktu, 1972 (TV script)Breakfast of Champions, 1973Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons, 1974 (opinions)Slapstick, 1976Jailbird, 1979Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage, 1981 (essays)Deadeye Dick, 1982Galapagos, 1985Bluebeard, 1987Hocus Pocus, 1990Fates Worse than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s, 1991 (essays)Timequake, 1997A Man Without a Country, 2005 (essays)

Civility and polarization -- which side are you on boys, which side are you on


CC has issued a call for more serious civil discussion of the issues in the Canadian blogosphere, while, of course, reserving the right to snark and heap abuse on boneheads when appropriate.
This got me to thinking about the polarized nature of the blogosphere and the tone and tenor of most of the debate. Pour yourself a drink, this is going to be a long one.

The vast majority of the popular political sites tend to be echo chambers to some degree with most of the debate being among people who are in fundamental agreement.

If you are commenting on major lefty blogs such as Eschaton or Firedoglake or even humorous site identified with the liberal side such as Tbogg you are likely a liberal prochoice Democrat who opposes the war and dislikes George Bush or you're a knuckledragging troll who is there to bait such people. Moderate conservatives who oppose the war don't comment there - though I'll concede they might lurk. If you are regularly reading and commenting on Powerline, Michelle Malkin, Little Green Footballs or Free Republic you are likely among the minority who still back George W. Bush, favored the invasion of Iraq and think that God, guns and guts made America great - or you're a liberal blogger looking for material.

Wingnuts stick with wingnuts, moonbats stick with moonbats and when we are talking amongst ourselves about the other side the rhetoric can and does run pretty high -- though I would argue you hear lot less eliminationist rhetoric and accusations that people who believe X are traitors who hate America/Canada/Western civilization in Left Blogistan. Most of it is preaching to the converted, rallying the troops and pointing out the mistakes of the other side. Which is all fine and good up to a point, but even if three quarters of us think Bush is a moron who ought to be in prison, we still have to live next door to the quarter who think otherwise. We need to get along a bit better with people who don't agree with us.

I think the effect of the political blog wars and the ratcheting up of the rhetoric has done little more than polarize the general public. The coverage of elections as if they were horseraces and media emphasis on red state vs. blue state divides has contributed greatly to this. People are being told they must choose a side in the blogosphere, in the culture war, in politics. The idea of a "swing voter" choosing the party who will work for the greater good is being replaced with an us vs. them "you're either for us or against us"mentality that insists on ideological purity and encourages extremism.

There are left/liberal sites where the rhetoric is more restrained and the emphasis is more on information and discussion of policy. There is still a partisan agenda, but slapping the other side around for laughs tends to be pushed to the back burner and the writing is more of the sort one might expect to see on the op-ed page. I'm thinking of sites like Crooked Timber, Juan Cole, Glenn Greenwald, TPM Cafe and to a lesser extent the Huffington Post. You'll find thoughtful factual, researched posts there that deal with the opposition is more or less civil terms. These kind of sites seem to embrace the sort of civility that CC is calling for and one would think that oppositional comments from Republicans and conservatives would be treated according to the golden rule -- if the comment is polite, the response tends to be polite, and trolls get flamed.

I'm not sure such sites exist in Right Blogsilvania. Is there a conservative version of TPM Cafe? If there is, I would like to see it.Does the right have its reasoned, thoughtful online pundits that mirror intelligent, liberal bloggers like Juan Cole, Glen Greenwald and Josh Marshall? (And please don't suggest Instapundit or the Townhall gang present anything like reasoned, civil discussion. There is a reason an entire swath of the liberal-left blogging community has evolved into a group who do little more than document the atrocities against logic, good taste and decency committed by these radicals in sheeps clothing --because it is damn near a full time job.)

I'm all for civil discourse, and I'm willing to discuss any issue in a reasonable manner. People of good will can disagree and democracy lies in working out a way to overcome such disagreements and work for the common good. It is those who seek partisan advantage and try to score political points instead of seeking to understand the facts and find a solution to the problems of the day that are destroying civility and threatening democracy. The echo chamber blogs have their role to play,--we all need a place to let off steam, bitch and poke fun-- but more constructive discussions between liberals and conservatives really need to happen and soon or we are all in lot more trouble than we realize.

Leaving the mess in Iraq to fester so it can be blamed on someone else gets people killed. Ignoring science for ideological or political reasons or simply to placate the people who donated money to your campaign is going to ruin the environment. Letting problems with education, immigration, trade and infrastructure get worse because no one wants to admit a mistake or give ground is only going to make those problems harder to solve in the long run.

When Jon Stewart bitchslapped Tucker Carlson and Paul Beglala and the whole Crossfire forced dichotomy view of politics, he had it right ---stop it, you're not helping. The trash talking just isn't getting us anywhere.

I'm as guilty as anyone of making fun of the opposition and deriding the opinion of those I disagree with. And it is okay to do that, as long as we accept the fact that people have a right to disagree with us and have a right to make fun of us for disagreeing with them. But the feces-flinging and calls for physical intimidation and outright violence really need to stop.

Having said that, I also think it should be a two-way street. I promise to stop calling Jonah Goldberg Doughy Pantload just as soon as he criticizes Ann Coulter for calling for the New York Times building to be blown up. I'll stop insisting that the posters on Free Republic are knuckle-dragging bloodthirsty brownshirts when they stop saying that the solution to the problem is Iraq is "nuking the cameljockeys" and the solution to immigration issues is sealing the borders and shooting latinos on sight.

I'm all for civil discourse, but if you want to be a jerk, be prepared to take it as well as dish it out. Troll should be flamed, and hypocrites mocked and the dishonest and the petty and the small-minded called on their bullshit. For the rest of us wellmeaning people who disagree, lets put the knives away and talk without the table-pounding, flag-waving and histrionics.

Drat! Foiled again
And we would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for that meddling CEO!

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President
The Detroit News
Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.
Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week.

(Mad props to TRex at Firedoglake for spotting this one)

And in other news -- Air travel is only for only for people who support the President, Part 637

Hard-luck Habs and the midget of doom
Hockey season is over, let the playoffs commence -- Not that I care who wins Lord's Stanley's punchbowl this time around as Les Habitants, despite a great start and strong finish to the season, have missed the playoffs at the hands of the hated Leafs. As proof that God or the ghost of Clarence Campbell has a sense of humor, the Leafs are also being sent to the golf course -- by the woeful New York Islanders (Have they even made the playoffs since the days of Dennis Potvin, Mike Bossy, Bryan Trottier, Clark Gillies and Billy Smith?). The Canadiens showed a lot of heart in the stretch this year-- just look at the performance of Saku Koivu in the last two weeks, a better clutch player you will not find --and the way the squad has gelled under its new coach (with the exception of the profoundly disappointing Sergi Samsonov) but not enough to overcome the midseason losing streak that saw them fall from third to also ran in the space of about a month. If we just had a little more offense...

In other revolting developments, Tokyo tiny perfect fuehrer won relection Sunday, and by a sizable margin. Expect him to propose that the city declare war on China sometime next week and for the likes of me to rounded up and put in a camp in Ueno Park sometime by the end of the month.

Of course, it could be worse. I could be riding around Afghanistan like these six men were when the road exploded. My sympathies to their families and friends and my thanks to them for their sacrifice.

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
By Bill Bryson
Read by the author
Audio editions
7-1/2 hours on 6 CDs, unabridged
Bill Bryson, best known for his humorous travelogues (Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country) returns to more familiar territory with his latest work, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a memoir of growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, in the '50s and '60s.

The title is derived from Bryson's childhood alter ego, a superhero whose "thundervision" is used to incinerate teachers, parents, classmates, shop clerks and other assorted "morons."
While telling his own story, Bryson also takes pains to put things in context for his audience, supplying statistics and historical notes on the era and opening each chapter with quotations from period newspaper stories.

The 1950s was unquestionably the golden age for Middle America: The booming economy and swift and steady march of technology meant a standard of living that soared at a rate unparalleled before or since. Some Midwestern families went from not having indoor plumbing or electricity to owning color TVs, refrigerators and even air conditioning in the space of a decade. It was the last gasp of what Greil Marcus refers to as the "Old, Weird America" that existed before the era of fast food, network television and retail franchising took their toll on regional differences, a time when department stores and restaurants were strictly local, family-owned enterprises. Bryson rhapsodizes at length about Des Moines' main department store and the specialties of local eateries.

A longtime resident of England who was rewarded for his contributions to the written word with an honorary Order of the British Empire (OBE) in December, Bryson has mostly lost the rough edges of his regional midwestern accent--though the pronunciation of the northern plains is very near the model of the neutral North American accent. His dry, subdued delivery is almost English in its understatement, never succumbing to the overenthusiastic, near manic emoting typical of some comic narrators, regardless of the sometime electric energy of the text. There are no funny voices, sound effects or ham acting here, just solid writing delivered in an almost conversational tone, like a friend telling tales of his own boyhood over a sociable beer.

And those stories cover the broadest range of topics. While Bryson looks back on his childhood and adolescence as a golden era, he does not present a bowdlerized version of his youth. While Des Moines is hardly Hell's Kitchen, we are treated to stories of an onanistic neighbor, class and racial divisions in the town, adolescent lust and Bryson's affiliation with a high school beer bandit whose ultimate caper involved the emptying of a full warehouse over a weekend.

He also writes movingly about his father's considerable skill as a sportswriter and his mother's magical ability to turn food into charcoal. While the book is an affectionate look at the time and place in which Bryson grew up, it also pokes fun at the limited horizons and narrow outlook of his childhood hometown. In a final chapter that revisits Bryson's childhood home and friends 40 years later, one can sense how glad the author is to have come from Des Moines and also how happy he is to have left it when he did. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid manages the rare feat of embracing nostalgia while eschewing sentimentality.
(Apr. 7, 2007)

Looking it up
Hey all you aspiring journalists out there, this week's Time magazine has a lesson for you in how not to report a story. I don't usually read Time or pay much attention to Joe Klein and this is a great example of why. It has been covered elsewhere, but I just happened to see the offending article this morning at work and figured I would add my two cents worth.

Klein's profile of Akansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and his religious faith quotes the Gov. as saying: "I'm a 'grace' Christian, not a 'law' Christian. The Second Commandment -- do unto others -- is the basic tenet of my faith."

One small problem, the Second Commandment, the one off the top ten list that Charleton Heston, I mean Moses brought down the mountain, has to do with not worshipping false idols. "Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You" is the golden rule, it isn't part of the Ten Commandments.

Conservative apologists, after they get finished ranting about heathen pinkos hating Huckabee for daring to be a born again Christian and accusing the godless libruls of playing "gotcha" with the holy word of God, usually insist that what Huckabee was referring to was a passage in the New Testament's Gospel of Matthew

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” –Matthew 22:36-40

"Love thy neighbor as thyself" is not the same as the golden rule, so we can see that this defence is basically bullshit. Huckabee just doesn't have that firm a grasp on his biblical references.

My purpose here is not to suggest that Huckabee isn't a good Christian or that Christians who don't know their bible shouldn't be president or that he thinks the original Ten Commandments only apply to Jews or anything like that. Admittendly, I would prefer the leader of the free world be a little less superstitious than the present White House occupant, who thinks that God chose him to be president and that his close personal buddy Jesus talks to him, but I don't think being religious should disqualify you from holding public office. In fact, I don't really care about Huckabee and I doubt he will be the Republican nominee -- he talks too much about helping the poor and not enough about smiting evildoer (like someone else who can to a bad end) to get elected president.

My purpose is to point out what a useless hack Joe Klein is.

When an interview subject makes such a blatant factual error as misattributing a pithy quote, a reporter can either correct or question the interviewee on the spot if they catch the error - or they can point out the error to the interviewee prior to publication when they go back to the office and look up the reference and give them a chance to retract or modify their statement. If you really want to play gotcha, you can just report what they said and point out the error in print, but that is fairly lame unless the interviewee has a history of talking crap and pretending to he doesn't know what he's talking about.

If you are Joe Klein and you don't bother fact-checking things that politicians say to you, you could just build your whole story around the botched reference, using the egregious error to coin a catchy new term that will catch on as a buzzword with the ignorant right and title the article "The Second Commandment Republicans" --- Then you'd be a useless hack worthy of TIME.

Dumbness
As the man says "They walk among us.....and breed"
Apathetic Nation: these stories are likely true... sadly...

The truth might not set you free, but it will get a lot of people off your back
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, having built his career on his credentials as a nationalist and having built his credentials as a nationalist on denying the darkside of Japan's wartime past is now claiming the whole sex slaves, sorry -- "so-called comfort women"kerfuffle -- is a result of bad reporting in the press. Meanwhile the historian who found the documents that weren't supposed to exist stands by his research that the Imperial Japanese Army forcibly abducted tens of thousands of women and forced them into sexual slavery for the glory of the empire.

Abe and nationalist in the Japanese government have very nearly derailed the six party toalks on North Korea's nukes by lambasting the North Koreans over Pyongyang's abduction of a couple of dozen Japanese in the 70's and 80's -- a reprehensible act for which there is no justification, and one which Kim Jong Il has admitted to, though the North Koreans have not come completely clean on the matter. At the same time though, Abe's government refuses to discuss or take responsibility in any sincere way for the abduction and repeated rape of thousands of Korean women at military "comfort stations" or compensation for Koreans brought to Japan as forced labour during the war. The Washington Post had a good editorial on this last week

Then there is this extended exercise in revisionism, denial and just plain nonsense -- part 1, part 2 and part 3 of why I shower when I get home from work.

Now that is what I call snark
With all respect to Canadian Cynic, Tbogg, Jesus' General, Norbiz, Atta J. Turk et al THIS is what we mean when we say snark. 'Cause something is happening and you do know what it is, don't you Mr. Jones?

Surrounding himself with the best people

Remember when George W. Bush was running for president the first time. Remember how he couldn't name the leaders of Pakistan, India or even Canada? The message from the GOP and the media was "So what if he' s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, he'll surround himself with the best and brightest. Besides, who would you rather sit and have a beer with, Dubya or Al "Pointdexter" Gore?" How's that one working out for you, America?

One of the central figures in the latest in a long line of scandals, the firing of eight U.S. attorneys for political reasons. ( Some were too dedicated to pursuing corruption among Republicans, others didn't move fast enough in investigating Democrats to suit their Republican rivals) is a woman named Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House. She's the one who is taking the 5th (freedom from self-incrimination) in her testimony to Congress. Forget for a moment that the whole country should be mortally embarrassed that the Justice Department's representative to the White House is so afraid that her testimony about how she did her job is liable to land her or her boss in prison -- is she one of the best and brightest America has to offer?

Here's a bit of her bio from the McClatchy Newspapers.

"Goodling, 33, is a 1995 graduate of Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., an institution that describes itself as "committed to embracing an evangelical spirit." She received her law degree at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va. Regent, founded by Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson, says its mission is "to produce Christian leaders who will make a difference, who will change the world."

Let me get this straight: she has a degree from Praise the Lord and pass the jello bible school (Ranked the 4th best comprehensive college in the northeast by US New and World Report, no smoking or drinking allowed) and a law degree from Pat Robertson's bible university and Rapture readiness center and at the grand old age of 33 she is a senior official at the Justice Department?

What's next, a home-schooled surgeon general? A high-school dropout as Secretary of Education? (Mike Harris already tried that in Ontario)

I got my ecclesiastical credentials by sending $20 to an address I got out of the back of Rolling Stone -- I guess it's just a matter of time before I'm appointed Pope. Good thing I look good in hats.

The Custer Doctrine

Apparently the U.S. Navy has taken its rules of engagement either from the Japanese defenders of Okinawa who fought to the second-last round and then killed themselves or Gen. Custer's final engagement at Little Big Horn.

"The U.S. Navy rules of engagement say we have not only a right to self-defence but also an obligation to self-defence," Horner explained. "(The British) had every right in my mind and every justification to defend themselves rather than allow themselves to be taken. Our reaction was, 'Why didn't your guys defend themselves?'"

Lt. Cmdr Gung Ho needs to give his head a shake. A pair of inflatable Zodiacs full of men and women armed with rifles and side arms can't really be expected to fare too well against a half-dozen patrol boats armed with heavy machine guns. The term Swiss cheese comes to mind. But at least they wouldn't be a bunch of effete British nancy boys.

And speaking of clueless neofacists...
Debito has the kind of roundup I'm too lazy to put together on the charming Japanese Foreign Minister, who thinks Japanese will be better at solving the Middle East diplomatic Gordian knot because of the colour of their eyes and skin. I'm sure you won't be surprised that he is the forefront of the "War? What War? You Mean Japan's Glorious Anticolonial Crusade to Free China (In Which We Never Committed Any Atrocities)?" movement. He also ran his family's coal company before he got into politics, a company that took full advantage of forced labor during the war. Not that you'd have read about his comments in much of the Japanese Press.

By any other name...
If Stephen Harper were Mr. Potatohead, he'd be a dick-tater. Scott Feschuk nails it down with his advice to Stephane Dion about how to handle Harper's verbal thuggery, though personally I'd rather see him take the Trudeau approach and offer him a nice steaming-hot cup of fuddle duddle.

Even kids this young know the best way to handle a bully is to smack him on the nose the very first chance you get, and keep on smacking him until he stops acting like a dick.

Dis and dat
The most dangerous professor to ever play wing, maximum leader and president for life of the We Are All Giant Nuclear Fireball Now Party, the blogtastic Michael Berube, has returned to the interweb tubes! When he shut down his popular blog back at the start of the year, was an occasion for much weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. The last thing he wrote there is one of the most eloquent and informed explanations of agnosticism you are likely to read. Now he is making his triumphant return at Crooked Timber, hopefully with Theory Tuesdays and Arbitrary but Fun Fridays and hockey blogging in tow. Welcome back Michael, but remember, the Rangers still suck.

Kevin is home. Hopefully, his parents will get to stay.

Hold the presses, Peter MacKay did something right, though it did take him a few weeks to get around to it.

A South Korean protester invaded the Japanese embassy grounds in Seoul yesterday, but for some reason the Japanese media stuck its fingers in its ears, chanted Kimigayo and pretended it didn't happen.

Finally, a question about the Canadian budget: Wasn't the rise of the Western populist movement of the 80's and 90's that gave birth to the Reform Party and its current incarnation as the Alberta-centric Conservative Party of Canada largely sparked by Western outrage over equalization payments and federal spending giving Quebec a disproportionately larger slice of the pie than the west. Wasn't this the greatest sin the Liberals could be accused of, that they were siphoning off money from the West and using it to buy votes in Quebec to stay in power?
Glad to see the Gnu Gummint of Kanada has put a stop to that.

IN YOUR EAR

Kevin Wood / Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

RY COODER

My Name is Buddy

Warner, 2,680 yen

Call it a folk opera, a roots song cycle or even a musical socio-political analysis of modern U.S. history--whatever label you stick on it, Ry Cooder's new concept album My Name is Buddy is an entertaining road trip into America's past.

Best known for his 1997 project (and the subsequent Wim Wenders film) Buena Vista Social Club, an attempt to preserve the music of prerevolutionary Cuba, Cooder is a keen musicologist who dabbled in African music on his Grammy-winning 1994 collaboration with Malian guitarist Ali Farka Toure, Talking Timbuktu. He's also scored several films.

Artistically, My Name is Buddy picks up where Cooder's previous album Chavez Ravine left off. While that album used jazz, Latin-infused rock and pop and mariachi band music to tell the musical story of the Los Angeles barrio that was bulldozed to make way for Dodger Stadium, Buddy uses blues, rags, union anthems, bluegrass, dust bowl folk, country and roots rock to trace the history of the American progressive movement from the early days of the labor movement ("Strike"), through the Jim Crow era ("Sundown Town") and Red Scare ("Red Cat Till I Die") to the current frustration of those turned away at the polls in the most recent U.S. presidential election ("One Cat, One Vote, One Beer").

To keep things from getting too serious--the usual fatal flaw in political music--Cooder tells the whole story through a group of talking animals. The titular Buddy is a wandering cat who teams up with Lefty the mouse and the Rev. Tom Toad. One Internet wag at CD Universe aptly described it as "Woody Guthrie meets Beatrix Potter."

While there is anger in many of the songs, Cooder vents his frustration over injustice through not-too-subtle humor. Sings Cooder: "God help us J. Edgar, nothing's safe from you" in a song about a voracious hog named for a brand of vacuum cleaner.

Cooder wears his political heart on his sleeve--Karl Marx's Das Kapital is pictured on the inside cover of the accompanying booklet that provides the narrative context for each of the 17 songs.

Pete Seeger, the last of the great progressive activist-folksingers, plays banjo on the album and is feted alongside the legendary labor organizer and singer Joe Hill on the terrific "Three Chords and the Truth." Cooder and Seeger are joined by a number of guests including the Chieftains' Paddy Moloney, famed session drummer Jim Keltner, Van Dyke Parks and Flaco Jimenez.

If there is a weak spot in this hootenanny opus, it is that aside from some elegant country slide guitar on "Hank Williams" Cooder never really stretches out and delivers any of the scorching solos longtime fans might expect. While this will pass unnoticed by the casual listener and in no way detracts from the finished product, it is a little disappointing not to see the guitarslinger ranked No. 8 on the Rolling Stone list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time showing off his chops at greater length.

BAKER BROTHERS

Hot Cakes: Live in Japan

P-Vine, 2,100 yen

When one thinks of funk, the first places that spring to mind are not Bournemouth, England or Tokyo, but P-Vine Records capture and release of Britain's fraternal funkateers' energetic Nov. 2006 performance in Japan's capital may put both cities on the list. Often reminiscent of the Meters, the Baker Brothers' jazzy old-school R&B sound is bound to put the cut in your strut, the glide in your stride and separate the funk from the junk. This disc is an instant party.

(Mar. 17, 2007)